A handwritten note was pinned beside the photos:Michael Torres.Sonoran 100 registered.Trains Tues/Thurs/Sat mornings, 6 AM start.Superstition ridgeline route.Ready soon.
Ready soon.Kari's mouth went dry."Maria, we need to find Michael Torres.Right now."
Maria looked at the note, understanding immediately."Today's Thursday."
Thursday morning.Torres would have started his training run at six AM—four hours ago.Plenty of time for Brightwater to have followed him, to have begun the same deadly chase that had killed four others.
Kari pulled out her phone, calling dispatch."I need you to run a name—Michael Torres, late twenties, registered for the Sonoran 100.I need his contact information immediately.And get search and rescue on standby for the Superstition Mountains.We may have an active situation."
While dispatch worked on locating Torres, Kari and Maria searched the rest of the house for any indication of where Brightwater might have gone.They found a charging station for a GPS device, but the device itself was missing.Same with a satellite communicator that Torres had purchased according to receipts they found.
"He's out there," Kari said."Right now, he's out there with Torres, or he's tracking him, or he's already—" She couldn't finish the sentence.
Dispatch called back."Detective Blackhorse, I've got contact information for Michael Torres.His wife says he left for a training run this morning at five-forty-five.She expected him back by noon, but he hasn't answered his phone.She was about to call us to report him missing."
"What was his starting point?"Kari demanded.
"Peralta Trailhead.Superstition Wilderness."
Kari hurried toward the door."Get every available unit to that location.And I want helicopters in the air, searching the ridgeline routes.We're looking for two runners—one chasing the other.Send me the GPS coordinates."
They left Brightwater's house at a run, Kari's mind racing through what they'd found.
"How long does it usually take?"Maria asked as they raced down the dirt road toward their vehicle."For someone to die in the chase?"
Kari thought about the GPS data from previous victims, about the hours of running before their bodies gave out."Jessica Ramirez lasted about six hours.Hartman made it almost eight.If Torres started at six AM, and if Brightwater found him quickly..."
"We might already be too late."
"Or we might have just enough time."Kari climbed into the vehicle, starting the engine before Maria had even closed her door."Either way, we're going to find him.And we're going to stop Brightwater before he kills anyone else."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kari spread the maps from Brightwater's house across the hood of her vehicle, Michael Torres's wife standing beside her with red-rimmed eyes.Search and rescue teams were assembling at the Peralta Trailhead, but Kari knew traditional search methods wouldn't work.Brightwater had spent years running these mountains, knew every wash and ridgeline and hidden canyon.He'd avoid the obvious routes, the places where searchers would naturally look first.
She needed to think like him.Needed to understand not just where he'd go, but where his twisted beliefs would take him.
"Your husband's training route," she said to Mrs.Torres."Did he follow the same path every time?"
"Usually the Ridgeline Loop.About twenty miles, gains maybe three thousand feet of elevation."Mrs.Torres's voice shook."He's done it dozens of times.He knows it better than our own neighborhood."
Kari traced the route on Brightwater's map, noting where he'd marked observation points and decision nodes—places where a runner would have to choose between different paths.
But she was looking for something else.Something in Brightwater's journal entries about transcendence and enlightenment, about the sacred nature of suffering in the desert.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled to the photos she'd taken of Brightwater's journal.One entry stood out:The sacred places are where the desert shows its true face.Where water is absent and heat is absolute.Where the body breaks and the spirit emerges.Only in the harshest landscape can transformation occur.
The harshest landscape.Kari thought about her grandmother Ruth's teachings about the desert, about how the Navajo understood this land as a place of both danger and spiritual significance.Balance was key—respecting the desert's power while not seeking to be consumed by it.But Brightwater's damaged brain had twisted that understanding, had turned respect into worship, balance into extremes.
He wouldn't take Torres on the established trails.He'd push him into the most brutal terrain, the places where the sun hit hardest and there was no shade, no water, no mercy.
Maria appeared at her elbow, radio in hand."Search teams are ready.Where do you want them to start?"
Kari studied the map, thinking about the Ridgeline Loop and where Brightwater might have intercepted Torres.If Torres had started at six AM, he'd have been about five miles in when Brightwater made contact.From there, the chase would have pushed Torres off his planned route, deeper into the wilderness.
But where would Brightwater drive him?What destination would his delusional beliefs suggest?
She found what she was looking for on the map—a section of the Superstition Wilderness marked with a red star in Brightwater's handwriting:Sacred ground.Where I first saw the truth.
